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THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 27, 2017
"Ipsa Dixit" is a brainy and emotional tour de force.
MUSICAL EVENTS
SINGING PHILOSOPHY
Kate Soper's theatre of the mind.
BY ALEX ROSS
PHOTOGRAPHS: ERIC BRUCKER/EMPAC/RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTIANA COUCEIRO
T good argument to be
made for retiring the words "ge-
nius" and "masterpiece" from critical dis-
course.They are artifacts of the Roman-
tic religion of art, implying a superior
race of demigods who loom above or-
dinary life. Such terms are rooted in the
cult of the male artist---the dishevelled
Beethovenian loner who conquers an
indi erent world. Above all,
these words place an impos-
sible burden on contempo-
rary artists, whose creations
are so often found wanting
when compared with the mas-
terpieces of the past---not be-
cause the talent pool has
somehow evaporated but be-
cause the best of the present
diverges from the past. In a
decentered global culture, a
few great men can no longer
dominate the conversation.
Nonetheless, in the face of
a work as comprehensively
astounding as Kate Soper's
"Ipsa Dixit," which the Wet
Ink ensemble recently pre-
sented at Dixon Place, on
the Lower East Side, the old
buzzwords come to mind.
Soper, a thirty-five-year-old
native of Ann Arbor, is a com-
poser, a singer, and a writer;
above all, she is a thinker. Her
pieces, which are usually built
around her own voice, often
adopt the manner of a lec-
ture. "What is art?" are the
first words of "Ipsa Dixit."
Soper is introducing Aristotle's Poetics,
and the opening movement consists
largely of an adaptation of that text, spo-
ken and sung. This seems like an un-
promising beginning for an evening's
entertainment, but Soper and a trio of
fellow-musicians---a flutist, a violinist,
and a percussionist---succeed at once in
animating the material. After the ini-
tial question, they mime playing their
instruments, as if to ask, "Does John
Cage count?" And after Soper declares,
"Art is imitation," the percussionist dings
a bell while Soper waves a silent one.
They illustrate the words "flute," "lyre,"
and "rhythm," and demonstrate various
poetic metres. These are just the first
moments of a ninety-minute tour de
force in which ideas assume sound and
form. Call it philosophy-opera.
"Ipsa Dixit" includes two other
movements based on Aristotle---"Rhet-
oric" and "Metaphysics"---as well as
settings of Plato, Sophocles, Guido
d'Arezzo, Pietro Bembo, Freud, Witt-
genstein, Robert Duncan, Lydia Davis,
Michael Drayton, Jenny Holzer, and
Sarah Teasdale. The recurring topic is
the relationship between expression and
thought, language and meaning. The
work could easily collapse under the
weight of its intellectual cargo, but Soper
maintains a light touch even as she
delves into epistemological complexi-
ties. She has a poised, aristocratic man-
ner, yet she is alert to paradox, irony,
and absurdity. She can turn on a dime
between conversational speech, pure-
toned soprano singing, and Dadaistic
noise. Her vocal calisthenics are in the
lineage of such artists as Meredith
Monk and Cathy Berberian, with a
touch of Laurie Anderson, although
her restless, antic instrumental writing
is more in the European modernist
tradition. Soper is both brilliant and
funny---a combination that
is always in short supply.
"Poetics" unfolds like a
hyper-cerebral cartoon score,
jumping from one split-
second vignette to another.
When Soper speaks of styles
"too common to be beauti-
ful," the players saw away am-
ateurishly; mention of "exotic"
styles elicits flamboyant figu-
ration. At times, however, the
music reveals gaps between
Aristotle's strictures and mod-
ern aesthetics. When Soper
announces that "the meaning
of music-making is obvious
to everyone," the trio inter-
rupts her with a trembling,
misterioso digression. Her pe-
remptory conclusion, punc-
tuated by another pedantic
bell stroke, gets a laugh, be-
cause the meaning of this
music, or of any music, is far
from obvious. And when she
quotes Aristotle's critique of
improper proportions in art---
for example, a work that goes
on too long and loses its sense
of oneness---the crystalline,
shimmering music that follows, with
luxuriously sustained singing of the
Greek words to holon ("the whole"), un-
dermines the philosopher's point.
Later in the movement, the instru-
mentalists perform their tasks with in-
creasing halfheartedness---"as if losing
interest in the music," the score says.
Eventually, they wander o stage. Soper